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Direct Traffic

Direct traffic is sessions whose origins cannot be determined by GA4. In addition to simple direct input, causes include non-UTM tagging, referrer loss, and in-app browser restrictions. If the rate is high, the UTM tagging status must be checked.

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Direct traffic is commonly understood as 'the address entered directly by a person with high brand awareness', but in reality, it is a mixture of various causes such as inflow of email and Kakao links without UTM tagging, loss of referrer from the in-app browser, deletion of referrer when redirecting from HTTPS to HTTP, and dark social.

In GA4, if the direct traffic ratio is more than 20-30% of the total, you should suspect missing UTM tagging or referrer loss issues. Direct traffic tends to be inflated, especially when Kakao and text links are used a lot, such as hospital and medical homepages.

GA4 Screen Path: If you look at the 'Session Source/Medium' dimension in the Traffic Acquisition Report, you can see traffic directly in the '(direct)/(none)' row. In the default channel group, it is classified as a 'Direct' channel.

Key takeaways

  • In addition to direct URL input and bookmarking, this includes UTM omission and referrer loss.
  • When the referrer is not delivered from the browser within the Kakao, text, or SNS app, it is classified as Direct.
  • If it is more than 20-30% of total traffic, you should check the UTM tagging status.
  • It is classified as a 'Direct' channel in the GA4 default channel group.

References

Frequently asked questions

How can I reduce my direct traffic?

① Add UTM parameters to all email, Kakao, and text links, ② Check automatic tagging of Kakao business ads, ③ Completely switch to HTTPS (prevent referrer loss), ④ Check internal domain unwanted-referrals settings in GA4. We recommend that you review source/medium reports once a month to monitor (direct) rate trends.

Can you distinguish between true direct input and missing UTM inflow among direct traffic?

It is difficult to tell from the GA4 standard report alone. When you connect GA4 data to BigQuery, you can check the page_referrer parameter of the session to identify some cases that are caught as (direct) when there is a referrer. Additionally, patterns can be inferred by analyzing landing page parameters after UTM tagging.

Related terms